First published in 1989. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In mid-December 1942, after encircling the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad, Soviet forces in southern Russia began a series of offensive operations which continued unabated into February 1943. In these offensives the Soviet High Command attempted to smash German resistance and encircle the bulk of two German army groups. For two months the German forces struck back. In a well co-ordinated counterstroke they inflicted a major operational defeat on the Soviets and stabilized the front until the summer.

Armed revolution and civil war gave birth to the Soviet Union, world War II propelled it to global pre-eminence, and the Cld War contributed to the Soviet Union's demise. Given Marxism-Leninism's idological preoccupation with war and threats of war, it is understandable that the spectre of war should play a vital role in the life and fate of the Soviet state.

This work, using newly released and formerly classified Soviet and East German archives, provides a detailed record of the performance of Soviet airborne forces during peace and war.

This volume begins with an investigation of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. It draws upon eye-witness German accounts of what occurred, and supplements these with German archival and detailed Soviet materials. The Soviet government has released extensive amounts of formerly classified archival materials from the period. This material has been incorporated into the maps and text.

No war has caused greater human suffering than the Second World War on Germany's Eastern Front. Victory in the war cost the Red Army over 29 million casualties, whose collective fate is only now being properly documented. Among the many millions of soldiers who made up that gruesome toll were an unprecedented number of Red Army general officers. Many of these perished on the battlefield or in prison camps at the hands of their German tormentors. Others fell victim to equally terrifying Stalinist repression. Together these generals personify the faceless nature of the war of the Eastern Front...

A comprehensive guide to the battle for the Ukraine from the Soviet perspective during the winter of 1943-1944. This volume is an unexpurgated translation of the originally classified Soviet General Staff Study No.14.